The present invention relates to a computer network and method of operating same to preload content of selected web pages. The present invention relates to improvements in or relating to HTTP proxy caches or other similar caching mechanisms based on HTTP or other network protocols used for retrieval of internet content, hereafter referred to as web cache memories, and methods of operating web cache memories used in a network of electronic devices, and a method of preloading web cache memories with the content of selected web pages (URLs).
The network comprises a group of electronic devices comprising, for example, work stations, personal computers, servers, hubs, routers, bridges, switches (hereinafter refer to as “devices” of the network), and links between these devices, which may be in form of physical cable or wireless links. The network may be a local area network (LAN), such as an Ethernet network, a wide area network (WAN), or other types, including wireless networks and may operate in accordance with any desired network protocol.
As it is well known, many computer networks include web cache memories attached to the internet whereby the content of web pages, which are accessed from the internet by users of the network, may be stored temporarily in the web cache memory so that when they are re-accessed by the same or different user, perhaps a short time later, it is not necessary to access the internet but the content may be downloaded immediately to the user from the web cache memory. This reduces the amount of external data traffic on the system and speeds up access.
In some network environments there are particular problems. We will illustrate this by reference to a school or college environment but similar problems will be present in other network environments.
In the case of school or college, there may be a limited usable network capacity from the network to the internet. Certainly there is, rarely if ever, sufficient usable network capacity to the internet to satisfy a requirement for a large number of pupils to access the internet at the same time with acceptable latency.
When faced with this situation, one option is to improve the network capacity/performance to the internet. This may be prohibitively expensive however. An alternative is to deploy a web cache memory or similar device to avoid repeating requests having to traverse the network link. While this helps, the first request made for any web page will still suffer the same latency and bandwidth problems.